Since Han Ching moved to her new job, she gets to travel more on local scene. Though this time is not China, Pakistan, Indonesia or Thailand on wings but instead Perak, Penang, Johor, and Selangor on wheels. As I still have leave to clear from last year and after a hectic an d sleepless month working for ironically a project in Perak, I was surprised to go back to the town where this project was. Manjung. I dropped Han Ching off to the factory in Sitiawan and began to loiter around Perak not-so-famous-for-tourism town. Happened to be the town is so dead and quiet that the focus is more to industry-driven purpose. Wondered how they claimed themselves to be Venice of Perak.
Harvesting bird nest is one of the activity you can relate with Sitiawan. I took a drive along an "abandoned" shop lot a distance away from Han Ching's factory. I was hoping for some places for food. To my astonishment, the brand new shop lots were all closed. Shut doors! Gee, the business must be really bad there. Upon looking closer, the windows were fully opened. Weird thing was though it was opened it was blocked by brick wall laid behind the windows.
After making one round of that eerie feeling shop lot, I came across the word Taman Eko Burung Walet on building which means Swiflets Eco-Garden. The name is nice. Eco. Good enough to fool people and birds by the fact that it was meant to be a bird nest harvesting ground. This shoplot isn't catered for human dwelling. It was built for the purpose to lure swiftlets to built their nests in it and while they are away hunting for food on the daytime, harvesters will come in and stole away their nest. Poor birds. I'm sure the swiflets must be furious like an Angry Bird when they got home.
I wound down my car window and I was treated to relentless sound of birds' chirping indicating to me that more than hundred of birds dwelling inside the buildings. With no sign of human beings, I drove down to the nearby town and I came across many abandoned building converted as the harvesting ground for bird nest. It's very simple to notice one along the road. Their windows was opened with brick wall (sometimes with opening through it) laid behind it. The door was closed. Nope. Not "chicken" ground. But multi thousand dollar business ground. Recently, some of the bird nest from Malaysia has been banned from other countries due to the authenticity issue. It's just not so "natural" anymore.
As it will be quite a while before Han Ching finished her work, I tried googling the web for some local delicacy to be found in Sitiawan. Guess what? I'm doing it with my "baling-anjing" Nokia phone. And I came across this shop called Sin Lay which is supposed to be famous for making "kon pheah". I bought myself a few pieces of the pork-lard oil infused, caramelised onions stuffed biscuits. I asked for the shop's staff for permission to snap some photos of their making process.
One could feel an ancient taste of how this biscuit was made by sticking the biscuit inside the wall of the oven filled with burning charcoal. The taste is awesome yet traditional. Pork lard tastes so good that you never thought to be guilty eating it without someone telling you that's it's unhealthy. I saved some for Han Ching and by the time she managed to get a hand on it, the whole car smell like one of the biscuits. I would recommend those who dropped by the shop to eat it fresh or while it's hot as once cooled, the biscuit is a bit chewy just like a hardened fat.
A few biscuit does not satisfy my stomach. As I was hunting for another famous eateries shops, most of them was either closed or still haven't started their business. I was left with disappointment. Both my GPS and baling-anjing Nokia phone couldn't find me anymore specialty food around. With no major entertainment around except Tesco Manjung, I drove down to Lumut to catch a glimpse of the harbour nearby. I parked by the river side and took a stroll while watching big vessels docking in and out. Frankly speaking, there is nothing to see and buy as souvenir in Lumut.
Except some "ham yue" (salted fish).
1 comment:
Those windows could potentially harm people. It needs to be repaired.
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